Vessel, the album before Twenty One Pilots blew up with “Stressed Out” on Blurryface, was arguably one of their best albums, despite being less heralded.

One of the tracks, a deep cut from that album called “Screen,” is particularly meaningful to me. The video above is audio only and the band never released the song as a single, but what I want to focus on anyways are the lyrics (below).

The song is about having a “screen” on his chest, or heart. It is a defense mechanism. Boundaries with other people, in his case “the only one who knows” his soul, that keep him from true intimacy and revelation of his heart. For me, I see this in myself with a lot of surfacey relationships or people who only “know” what I show them. Because of past relationships in my life, especially the most important relationships, I have had to put a guard around my heart to protect myself from being wounded over and over. The people who were supposed to be “safe” and who were meant to know me the best and still love me were not safe and hurt me and deeply wounded me.

Much of the counseling I’ve been through in the past has revolved around my heart and the protection I’ve set around myself, as well as how that protective part interacts with other parts that might have conflicting needs. I have worked on it to recognize that not everyone I know or interact with will hurt me in that way and with a safe person I can lower my guard in order to be known and experience intimacy that other parts crave in a new way.

Ultimately, we all have some level of brokenness that occurred in our lives that we are dealing with. Ignoring it or avoiding it doesn’t help. The only way to heal and move forward and move on is to be curious about how you are responding to the brokenness now. Understanding what happened, and how it affects you, and what you can do to move forward now. Counseling is really helpful for that.

---

“Screen” lyrics by Twenty One Pilots:

Verse 1:
I do not know why I would go
In front of you and hide my soul
‘Cause you’re the only one who knows it
Yeah you’re the only one who knows it

And I will hide behind my pride
Don’t know why I think I can lie
‘Cause there’s a screen on my chest
Yeah there’s a screen on my chest

Chorus:
I’m standing in front of you
I’m standing in front of you
I’m trying to be so cool
Everything together trying to be so cool

Verse 2:
I can’t see past my own nose, I’m seeing everything in slo-mo
Look out below crashing down to the ground just like a vertical locomotive
That’s a train, am I painting the picture that’s in my brain?
A train from the sky, locomotive, my motives are insane
My flow’s not great, okay, I conversate with people
Who know if I flow on a song I’ll get no radio play
While you’re doing fine, there’s some people and I
Who have a really tough time getting through this life
So excuse us while we sing to the sky

Bridge:
We’re broken
We’re broken
We’re broken
We’re broken people, oh
We’re broken people, oh

Songwriter: Tyler Joseph